The Fundy Film Society

Talk to Her

Featured at the 2002 Cannes and Toronto film festivals, acclaimed filmaker, Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother), brings his dazzling talents to a new cinematic experience that again digs deeply into the human condition. Benigno, a young male nurse, and Marco, an Argentinian 40-year-old travel writer, meet by chance at a theatrical presentation of a Pina Bausch spectacle. Benigno covertly observes how profondly Marco is moved by the performance but doesn’t dare confide that he is equally moved. Months later, the two men meet again at a private clinic where Benigno works. Lydia, Marco’s girlfriend and a bullfighter by profession, has been gored and is in a coma. Improbably, as it happens, Benigno is also looking after a woman in a coma, Alicia, a young ballet student. It’s the start of an intense friendship. Marco, lost in his silent vigil at Lydia’s side, receives valuable caregiving guidance from Benigno, who advises Marco to simply “talk to her”. So begins an extraordinary ironic journey of loneliness and friendship, detachment and passion, captivity and spiritual awakening &#8211 all in Almodovar’s fabled, visually stunning style. His concoction of stark honesty and delightful fancy is as effortless and intoxicating as ever, yet, with Talk To Her, Almodovar, achieves new layers of soulful richness. For all its trademark twists and turns, Talk To Her is perhaps Almodovar’s most accessible film, destined to enjoy a wider appeal then many of his previous storied escapades.

“Full of lovely, sweet suffering. You can’t get it out of your heart.” – Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

“A movie of technical skill and rare depth of intellect and feeling.” – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

“A rich and complex melodrama in which the director’s sensibility is borne out by even the smallest details.” – Jason Anderson, eyeWEEKLY